“Falling in love is when your mind embraces the irrational belief that another person is inordinately dedicated to meeting your needs.” – Ryan Orrock
I recently fell in love. It lasted three days. It had a sickly-sweet feel to it, at its core. I actually got tired of it eventually.
And what I found when I examined it deeply as was the hope that “maybe this person will give me what I want!”. I mean, I barely knew them. I hardly had any ideas of supporting them in their dreams or aspirations (esp. if they didn’t include me).
Finally, I had the thought, “You know, you are living in some sort of future, and what is supposed to happen will happen.” And poof! It was gone.
Falling in love is a feeling based on an “entitlement and deservingness” mentality. It brings lots of expectations and fantasies.
The other side of the coin is the frustration or even hatred we feel when the so-called “object of our love” refuses to act how we want.
In other words, in normal, societally-approved, culturally-accepted romantic love, ‘loving them’ and ‘hating them’ are only a heartbeat away and can switch at any time.
Look at most divorces.
If we “really love” someone, our feelings and treatment for them do not change regardless of whether:
- They want to be with us or not.
- They want to meet our needs or not.
Consider a healthy parent-child relationship. A healthy parent doesn’t start hating the child when they go to college or begin a new relationship—they are interested in the child’s happiness and well-being, not possession of or controlling them.
Every soul-mate/twin flame/etc concept that embraces you are ‘meant’ to be together forever or that the other person needs to act a certain way is not espousing actual healthy love.
Any healthy model of relating encourages you to look at relating in terms of needs which, as adults, we ask to be met. Not as a ‘feeling’ that overcomes all rational thought.
When people talk about ‘the love wears off after two to three years’, what they are talking about is that the mind’s illusion that this person will meet our needs wears off. For really unconscious people, this might take two or three years.
I was happy my fever was over after three days. It allowed me to start relating the healthy way:
- Noticing what I really wanted
- Asking for it
- Negotiating
And my connection to this person has been much, much more fulfilling and pleasurable in real, 3D experience than was the fantasy of what I had before.
Beware the trap of ‘falling in love’!